


Strength

by Frayach



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Cancer, Hurt/Comfort, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Post-Canon, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-01 05:51:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frayach/pseuds/Frayach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3811930/chapters/8495269">Life Goes On</a>.  Brian and Justin are in a long-term, committed relationship (though not without predictable hiccups).  Life is good, but then . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Happily Ever After, But Then . . . .

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a stand-alone story. You need to read [Life Goes On](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3811930/chapters/8495269) for it to make sense. Well, sort of. It won't be _completely_ incomprehensible, but it'll work better for you if you read the first story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Heads-up:** Please remember that I am writing fiction, and that the characters' views don't necessarily reflect mine.

Justin had “an affair,” and Brian was fine. It was short, wildly romantic and ended up requiring a restraining order. It wasn’t revenge for Brian leaving Pittsburgh. It was just a Justin-kind-of–thing. The guy was another musician – a bassist in a group named “The Bent Spoons.” Seeing a pattern, Brian briefly considered taking lessons in some kind of instrument, but he was too busy to practice. Plus, his (very) brief stint in a high school rock band had managed to convince him that music was never – and would never be – one of his fortes. He did take a course in black and white photography, though. He’d always wanted to, but arrogance and habitual disinclination had gotten in the way. His photos were mostly of buildings. He was drawn to the juxtaposition of old and new, classic and contemporary. His favorite photo featured a Gothic church spire reflected in the windows of an office building still under construction. Justin found it “symbolic” of Brian’s current life – old Brian and new Brian. Timeless beauty captured and contained in a vision of the future. They were having coffee while Justin looked through his portfolio. Brian had rolled his eyes at Justin’s remark, but he'd framed the photograph anyway and called it “Memory and Forgetting.”

At first Justin was defensive about his affair with The Bent Spoon Guy, but when he encountered no resistance from Brian, he seemed weirdly resigned as though he felt compelled to settle for less than he wanted. Again, Brian saw a pattern, but he kept his mouth shut. It wasn’t going to last. Justin would be his again. Why make the whole thing a huge, giant clusterfuck when, in the end, it wouldn’t matter? The Bent Spoon Guy was floppy and scruffy just as Ethan had been. It was as though periodically Justin needed to indulge his Bohemian artist side. Brian didn’t love the situation, but he was okay with it. He’d learned his lessons about battles versus wars when it came to Justin. Plus, regardless who Justin was fucking, he was fucking good at his job. Brian was more worried about losing him as an employee than as a lover, which at first upset Justin but eventually came to please him. He genuinely liked being good at something and liked (too much) that Brian recognized it. 

There’d been a lot at stake in Philly, but there was even more at stake in Baltimore. Baltimore had the unfortunate, but accurate, public image of being crime-ridden and was in desperate need of a makeover. The same day he went to meet with the mayor, he got mugged for the first time in his life. It happened in broad daylight right near a world-class medical school. The guy came up behind him, pressed something that might’ve been the barrel of a gun into the small of his back, right against his spine, and demanded money. Brian only briefly considered fighting back but decided a (relatively) cheap wallet and fifty bucks just wasn’t worth it. Justin freaked out when Brian told him and insisted he turn down the Baltimore job – adamant about it to the point of tears. When Brian reminded him how much he loved a challenge and there was no way in Hell he was going to reconsider taking on the Baltimore project, Justin ended his affair. The very next day, in fact. Apparently, the thought of Brian stubbornly inviting another “near-death experience” made whatever thrill he experienced with The Bent Spoon Guy seem trivial. The Bent Spoon Guy was pretty bent out of shape about it, though. They were able to ignore the bad poems he slipped under Justin’s front door, but the brick through the window was a Last Straw.

There were hundreds of condemned properties in Baltimore, most of which should have a date with a wrecking ball. Brian hired a car with tinted windows and an armed driver to tour the blighted neighborhoods. There were men of all ages hanging out on dilapidated stoops, and kids who were obviously drug dealers posted on street corners where nearby buildings were graffitied with gang insignias. Brian developed a sprain in his lip after hours of disdainful sneering. The whole scene was pathetic. Pawn shops with barred windows. Corner shops with surveillance cameras. Disgusting. He was glad he hadn’t invited Justin to go with him; he would’ve had to endure endless lectures about the plight of the fucking downtrodden and decades of discrimination. Fuck that. There had to be plenty of McDonalds around needing burger-flippers. The people were just lazy, welfare-leeches. Brian didn’t feel pity; he merely felt annoyance. It was a good thing he lived in Pennsylvania because he’d be pissed knowing his tax money paid for fifteen-year-olds in Baltimore to have their third kid.

But in the end, Justin managed (after an impressive campaign mostly comprised of guilt trips and withheld sex) to persuade him to focus on public housing rather than business district gentrification. Not that his arm had to be twisted too much – the size of the grants available from both the state and federal governments was fucking jaw-dropping. Plus, Justin tripped over his figurative feet with excitement when Brian put him in charge of the whole thing. He ended up in perpetual conflict with the architect, but it was worth it. Means to ends and all that shit. The resulting neighborhood was an unambiguous success. Not just functional but attractive. Thoughtfully laid-out with handsome brick townhouses true to Baltimore’s centuries-old architectural traditions. When Brian received an award for his “philanthropic endeavors,” he’d insisted that Justin accept it. The whole thing had been more his baby than Brian’s. Afterward, they fucked frantically in Brian’s car. It’d been a while (Justin’s affair hadn’t exactly been an aphrodisiac) since Brian had felt so horny. Despite the cramped space, his dick stayed hard through three orgasms. The last one brought him close to the edge of incoherence.

* * * * * * *

The Bent Spoon Guy (aka Spencer) was really shitty in bed but fun to get stoned with and talk about Marx into the wee hours. He’d been a classical cellist before he took up the base guitar, and Justin had liked the comparison with Ethan, only God knows why. He hated to admit it to himself, but he feared his little fling was a revenge. He _so_ hadn’t wanted Brian to stay in Philly and was shocked when Brian had. Shocked! Part of him had believed that Brian couldn’t survive outside of Pittsburgh. After he broke things off with The Bent Spoon Guy, he actually confessed his prediction to Brian. He’d expected shouting and demands that Justin go back home, but he merely encountered a glass of wine refilled and raised in a toast.

“To me,” Brian said. “Finally.”

Justin joined him, and they clinked their glasses together. Finally, indeed. Brian had become a connoisseur of happiness and an unlikely optimist. It was alarming, but it was also . . . well, let’s just say that Justin was proud of him. Proud in a way that Brian had always been proud of him. It felt good.

After the whole Bent Spoon thing, Justin started spending his weekends in Philly again. The city started to grow on him to the point where he enjoyed going various places and making sketches for possible paintings. To be sure, Philadelphia was no New York, but once Justin stopped comparing the two, he started to feel at home. He wanted to talk to Brian about moving there, but he felt guilty about the affair. Brian had made it clear he needed to be able to trust him, and he’d let Brian down. Or so he'd thought. It was disconcerting that Brian didn’t seem to agree. For a while Justin thought they’d returned to the icy emotional silences of their past, but then, after he broke up with The Bent Spoon Guy, he realized that Brian hadn’t been upset because he’d never felt threatened. It was a revelation. Brian believed in them! He believed in the durability of their relationship. He’d been testing Justin, and Justin had passed with flying colors – Bent Spoon Guy or no Bent Spoon Guy. Brian still believed his words: everything with them was only about time. Not will – that wasn’t subject to dispute. Just time.

Now that he’d grown up enough to be curious, he was learning all kinds of things about Brian – most of it good, but some of it alarming. Sadly, but predictably, Brian turned out to be a total racist, although he frustratingly denied it.

“I’m not anti-minority-people,” he claimed. “I’m anti-poor-people. If it just so happens that both demographics are the same, well, hey. Sorry if it offends you, Sunshine, but are you really all that surprised?”

“You’re so Ayn Rand,” Justin replied. “You should try reading something by John Maynard Keynes.”

“I have,” Brian said. “He’s a fruity-tooty liberal.”

“Just so you know, you’re fucking a ‘fruity-tooty liberal.’”

“Not to mention in love with one.”

“Bastard,” Justin replied and then kissed him.

 

Justin was also learning that Brian was a pretty talented photographer. He’d always suspected he was – Brian had done some of the photography for his ad campaigns, and it’d been good. Really good. But even more than the photography, Justin liked the fact that Brian was becoming An Artist like him. Justin liked artists. For a long time, he’d thought he’d end up with one. Maybe he would. _Hopefully_ , he would. Meanwhile, he, himself, was turning out to be damn good at business and even more so at being an asshole. Maybe they were related. Judging from Brian’s success over the years – and given that he was basically an asshole – that was probably the case. Sometimes being an asshole was the only way to get the job done. The architect Brian had hired to design his public housing project in Baltimore was a total dick. Justin was his supervisor, and Paul resented that. He was older than Brian and obviously considered Justin a no-nothing, little twerp who was blowing the boss. Tough shit. Justin had wanted street-side single-family townhouses and was _not_ going to be talked into multi-family apartments in bland buildings with aluminum siding. Not gonna happen. It helped that Brian always took his side, but Justin didn’t want to go running to him unless money was involved. He wanted the project to be _his_ , and in the end it was. By the time the mayor cut the symbolic ribbon strung between the railings on the stoop of the first house, Justin had gotten his way with everything – the size of the houses, the materials they were built with, the landscaping of the small front yards (perennials and dwarf cherry trees), the varying shades of paint on the front doors – it was all him. Everyone was proud of his work. When Brian told him to accept an award that was meant for him, he got a standing ovation.

The most meaningful was Cynthia’s. No one was expecting her to attend the ceremony – not even Ted with whom she’d remained close friends after she’d quit Kinney Investments. There were tears in her eyes as she clapped. Afterward, she came up to Brian and they hugged for a long time, her head against Brian’s chest and Brian’s arms around her. When later he and Justin fucked in the back of his BMW, Brian told him that he’d never been happier in all of his life.

* * * * * * * *

He kept getting letters from grateful families and wouldn’t admit to anyone – not even Justin – that they made him prouder about the Baltimore project than any previous one. A couple people even sent him pictures of their families posing in front of Christmas trees or sitting at an Easter table laden with food. Perhaps it was those photos that prompted him to ask Justin to leave Pittsburgh and move into his apartment in Philly. After all, the Pittsburgh office was in Ted’s hands, and Brian trusted no one more than Ted. Plus, Justin had proved himself to be a damn good project manager, and Brian wanted him there in the office every day. He’d missed their morning tête-à-têtes. Yes, they were lovers, and yes they spent every night together in their mammoth-sized bed, but their mornings were business only, and both of them enjoyed that. They’d been lovers before, but they’d never been creative partners. It was exciting. But most of all, it was fun.

Brian turned fifty in Justin’s arms, with his cheek pressed against Justin’s and his cock buried to his balls in Justin’s ass. They hadn’t planned it that way; it was just that they were still fucking when midnight rolled around. For the first time in his life, Brian didn’t give a shit that he was one year older. After all, who fucking cares? April 27th was just a date, and 50 was just a number. What mattered was where he was, what he was doing, and – most importantly – who he was with. It was high fucking time that he’d figured that out. Lindsay and Gus came for a celebratory visit. Lindsay was single again but seemed okay about it – “seemed” being the primary word in that sentence. Justin later told Brian that he’d caught her crying on the balcony after dinner, but she’d reminded him that she’d had a glass of wine too many and being tipsy had always made her maudlin. Brian wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what. He still wasn’t good with that kind of thing, especially when it came to Lindsay. He’d make a joke, and they were both too old for that. Life had served Lindsay meager dishes left cold on the counter, while it was the opposite for him. He’d had nothing but a handful of pills and turkey-on rye-hold-the-mayo for a long time, but now he had a case of Castello di Ama Chianti and a five-course feast. Life was good . . .

. . . and then it happened.

The cancer came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know: a cliffhanger. And a pretty brutal one at that. But it just wouldn't be right not to have one ;)


	2. I Promise

When Justin looked back, all he could see is what they did wrong. The symptoms were textbook. The loss of appetite. The chronic fatigue. The abdominal discomfort. The drop in libido. The unexplainable vomiting. But they did nothing. They didn’t even talk about it. To the extent that Justin let himself think about it, he attributed it all to stress. Brian was knees and elbows deep in another Baltimore project, but unlike the last one, the new one wasn’t going smoothly. This time City officials, claiming a shortness of funds, were not acting as the go-betweens, and Brian was having to deal with local landlords directly. He was no stranger to the mechanisms of corruption. He often told Justin not to ask too many questions when he got his way on something that’d first seemed impossible, but the landlords were a new breed of scuzzball. Worn thin between dealing with them and clawing his way through City Hall’s inevitable web of bureaucratic red tape like an intrepid spider, Brian was tearing his hair out. He’d taken up smoking again, and too many times Justin woke in the early hours of the morning to find him pacing in their living room.

“You’re wearing grooves in the floor,” he said one night when he wandered out of their bedroom wrapped in a sheet.

Brian took a long drag on his cigarette and let the smoke escape through his nostrils.

“Get this,” he said. “Some of those places still have lead paint in them. _Lead fucking paint_! No wonder everyone in that city is a fucking psycho; they’ve been chomping on toxic paint since they were in diapers. The fucking slumlords don’t comply with fire safety codes; they don’t pay for regular garbage pick-up; there are fucking rats and cockroaches all over the place, and what does city hall do about it? Fucking nothing, that’s what. I should tell them to take that whole fucking neighborhood and shove it up their asses. What’s the fucking point of having housing regulations if you don’t enforce them?”

“Brian,” Justin said, resting his hand between his shoulder blades. “Stop.”

Brian was so tense that he startled like a wild horse at Justin’s touch.

“Did you have anything to eat since this afternoon?”

“Not hungry,” Brian mumbled, taking another drag off his cigarette and then stubbing it out on a saucer. He was not yet smoking so much that he’d bought an ashtray. Not yet, at least. Justin wanted to say something – God, he wanted to say something! – but he didn’t.

“Come back to bed,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say.

Michael was furious when he and Ben came for a visit and discovered neither Brian nor Justin had contacted a doctor after Brian had started occasionally vomiting blood. The fact that they’d attributed the situation to an ulcer did not talk Michael down off the ledge. _Ulcers can be serious_ , he said. _Carl had an ulcer once, and he had to have surgery_. There followed an argument that might've grown heated and walked a fine line between concern and blame. Fortunately Ben was there to mediate and eventually got Michael to back-off and Brian to agree to see his physician. Justin was busy the next day, so Michael went with him. Later, when Justin met Michael for lunch at Justin’s favorite Jewish deli, Michael looked like it’d been he who’d been vomiting blood. His face was ashen. Brian was supposed to have been there too, but he wasn’t. He was meeting with an oncologist.

Justin’s worst nightmare came true when Brian refused to discuss his doctor visits. It was the last evening before Michael and Ben returned to Toronto, and Brian had planned to wine and dine them at the restaurant in which he shared part-ownership with that bastard architect, Paul. Justin had weakly protested, saying (with good reason) that they should stay in for the evening. The restaurant was swanky and overpriced, and Justin was pretty sure it wouldn’t be Ben and Michael’s thing. He was right when later Michael poked warily at his Paella and eyed with suspicion the baby octopi in Ben’s Polbo á feira. Things were going well though – Brian was teasing Michael and laughing when Michael took the bait, and Justin _almost_ forgot where Brian had spent the afternoon. But then, very suddenly and unexpectedly – probably even for Brian, himself – Brian vomited into his napkin, soaking it with blood. The conversation, not only at their table but the others in near proximity, stopped. When it was over, Brian sat stunned, his eyes fixed on his bloody napkin. Justin and Michael took each of his arms to help him out of his chair, while Ben signaled the waiter for the bill, who, of course, given that Brian was basically his boss, declined to do it. When they all reached the car, Brian braced his arms on the hood and stood still for a very long time, staring at his reflection in the gleaming black paint. 

When they returned to the apartment, Ben tried to keep Michael entertained with reruns of “Friends” while Justin sat on the floor by the toilet, soothing Brian as he was sick. Brian was groaning, and his shirt was soaked with sweat. Neither of them spoke, but they both silently agreed that Brian needed to go to the emergency room. All four of them got in the car, and Justin drove, trying his best to stay under the speed limit. It was hard. He’d never wanted to see the inside of a hospital so desperately in his whole life. By the time he pulled up in front of the emergency room, Brian was faint and virtually incoherent.

“Have me cremated,” he said when Ben caught him as he slid out of the car and scooped him up in his arms. “No worms . . . no . . . my dad. Fucking Jack Kinney. Don’t bury me . . . Justin?”

“I’m right here,” Justin said as calmly as he could. He’d wanted to argue about dying and cremation and worms, but this wasn’t the time. Instead he took one of Brian’s limp hands.

“Deb,” Brian said, sounding as plaintive as a child.

“Don’t worry,” Justin said. “We’ll call her.”

“I . . . no don’t call her. She’ll worry . . . she always worries . . .”

A hulking nurse ended Brian’s babble when he took him away from Ben and single-handedly placed him on a waiting gurney. A gentle giant, Justin thought crazily. Like what’s-his-name in “Of Mice and Men.”

“Sunshine,” Brian said. “Don’t go to New York . . . please.”

Justin swallowed several times in quick succession. He wasn’t going to cry. He _mustn’t_ cry.

“I won’t!” he called after Brian as he was pushed away down the hall. “I’m staying right here!”

But by then Brian was gone. Nothing remained in his wake except the echo of Justin’s words.

* * * * * * * *

Brian knew he was sick, and what’s more, he knew it was cancer. But if you haven’t got a diagnosis then maybe – just maybe – it’s all in your head. After all, he’d been under a shitload of stress, and it wasn’t the first time he’d suffered from hematemesis. He’d gotten an ulcer years ago from all the pills and booze he was gorging his system with. He’d been under stress then, too. Kinnetic was being bought out from under him; Ted had fallen off the wagon; Lindsay and Mel were breaking-up; Deb was ill, and Justin . . . well, Justin was in New York. Not that Brian had blamed him, of course. It’d just been a fact – one shitty fact among many. But this was different. He wasn’t in pain. He was merely tired and disinclined to eat or fuck. Big deal, right? _Right_?

His physician listened to Brian’s list of symptoms, his expression growing graver with each one. When he asked if Brian _absolutely_ needed to be somewhere that afternoon, Brian knew he was headed for Johns Hopkins. Michael drove. Brian wasn’t crazy about it. Michael wasn’t the world’s greatest driver, and Baltimore wasn’t an easy city to drive in, but he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t throw-up and slam them into a Jersey barrier. Ultimately, he hadn’t been sick, and Michael, with the help of the GPS and Brian’s instructions had gotten them to the hospital in one piece. There was the inevitable poking and prodding. He was asked a million and one questions all centered around his stomach. _Has he been experiencing cramps? Has he felt full even after eating a light meal? Has he been suffering from heartburn? Has he felt persistently nauseous for no ascertainable reason?_ When every answer turned out to be “yes,” he was given an upper endoscopy under light sedation and watched on a monitor as the endoscope inched down his throat and into his stomach . . . and there it was. A tumor. Brian closed his eyes. He had stomach cancer. Stage IIA. The survival rate was 46 percent.

Telling anyone that night – especially Michael – was not an option. It was his and Ben’s last day in Philly, and Brian didn’t want to have it spectacularly ruined by the news that, chances were, he was going to die soon. Life was soon going to become hell, but not yet. Not that night. He was going to eat, drink and be fucking merry. But in the end, he could neither eat nor drink, and things sure as hell weren’t merry. By the time the four of them reached the emergency room, Brian’s lips and fingertips were turning blue. “Hemorrhagic shock” was what the treating physician called it. When the nurse asked him whether she should tell Justin, he said yes, but only about the shock. She must say _nothing_ about the cancer. That was news that Brian should give his partner. Not some random woman with a shitty hairdo. The hospital stay lasted a couple days. Fortunately, Justin knew enough about the Baltimore project that he could take over. He ended up doing a better job than Brian could’ve. The landlords melted like butter in a microwave under his gentle – but unassailable – persuasion. By the time the last scumbag agreed to sell his shitty property at a reasonable price, Brian had told Justin about the cancer. He’d also told Justin that the best way he could help was to carry on with the project. _If I’m going to die_ , he told Justin. _I want to do it was a newspaper in my hand praising the hard fucking work you and I put into salvaging another shithole neighborhood. It’s the best legacy I can leave behind. Well, that and Gus, of course._

Justin took the news in stride. Brian knew he would. So did Ted and Cynthia. But predictably Michael and Lindsay did not. There was a lot of crying and anger. They both started going to church, which annoyed Brian even more than the hand wringing. But in the end, they got their shit together. They had to. They couldn’t do anything for Brian except look after Justin, and they did. Even Michael – actually _especially_ Michael. When Brian started chemo, Michael took over the cleaning, shopping and meal preparation. He didn’t have to; it wasn’t like Brian and Justin couldn’t afford a maid and cook, but he _needed_ to. Brian saw that. He hadn’t seen it the last time he’d had cancer, but he saw it now. The best thing you can do for those you love is give them a way to help, even if that help isn’t really necessary.

That year, instead of turning fifty-one fucking Justin’s brains out, he spent his birthday celebrating (to the extent he could) his and Justin’s wedding. It wasn’t a big deal – neither he nor Justin wanted it to be. Everything took place in their living room. There was a Justice of the Peace, and everyone else who could make it on a moment’s notice. Jennifer, Daphne, Ted, Michael, Lindsay, Gus. Their vows, at Brian’s request, were simple. No “to have and to hold from this day forward until death do us part” bullshit. Parting and death were the last things anyone wanted to hear about. Instead, they exchanged just a few, but crucial, words.

“I promise you that the only promises I’ll make are the ones I can keep,” he told Justin. “And I promise today to never leave you when you need me.”

Justin’s eyes filled with tears. “You never have,” he said.

“Speaking of promises,” Brian said. “You promised you wouldn’t get all moist.”

Justin laughed and wiped away his tears with the back of his hand.

“I promise,” he said and took a deep breath. “I promise to never _ever_ let you push me away again.”

He reached up and grabbed Brian’s head, holding it still while he kissed him. They were still kissing when the Justice of the Peace proclaimed them married with all the rights and obligations bestowed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

* * * * * * * *

Life kicked the shit out of Justin. First there was the operation, and then there was the chemo, and all the while he was battling the twin evils of Baltimore’s city hall and douche bag landlords. But it was what Brian wanted – what he _needed_ – and Justin was sure as fuck going to give it to him no matter how much it broke his heart to leave Brian with someone else every day . . . yes, someone who loved him, but someone else nonetheless. When Michael started to get exhausted, Lindsay came to live with them. There was some drama at first, and Justin feared he was going to have to ask her to leave, but when Brian started losing his hair, she sobered up – literally and figuratively.

Brian was . . . well, Justin didn’t know how to describe him. His moods swung back and forth between proud defiance and terrifying resignation. One day, he’d insist on being bald, the next he’d plead for a wig. He was all over the map emotionally, and his body was slowly being drained of strength, his eyes of vitality, his voice of resolution. Justin spent every night reading papers to him and flipping through T.V. channels desperate to find something to distract him. His arms ached with emptiness because Brian couldn’t bear to be touched, let alone held. Brian’s whole body hurt, even the nails of his fingers and toes. For a while, Justin could suck his cock and even sometimes give him the blessed, fleeting release of orgasm. It was an escape from pain for both of them, but then Brian’s inability to come transformed comfort into cruelty.

If love could tear him apart – as in _literally_ fucking tear him apart, flesh and guts and all; if it could break the bones in his hands, those precious, fragile bones that once had drawn and painted and brought Brian to countless climaxes; if it could tie his intestines in knots and gouge out his eyes – it would. And it was. If grief was a plague-infested blanket – the kind with which the native Americans were annihilated – it would smother him and strangle him and leave him with burst boils and bleeding sores. If hope was a momentary salve, it was watery and cold and unable to heal the terror he lived with day in and day out. If evening dreams were distant beacons lighting a trail toward life, they turned into early morning nightmares – waking, breathing, writhing nightmares. If miracles were real and not just a fanciful mirage, then Brian wouldn’t be in pain . . . he wouldn’t be dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another cliffhanger . . . God, even _I_ think I'm evil.


	3. There's Nothing I Won't Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After doing some revision, I realized this story needed four chapters, not three. So, don't worry. This isn't the last one.

The hardest part . . . the hardest fucking part wasn’t the nausea and the vomiting. It wasn’t the constant ache in Brian's bones. It wasn’t the sleeplessness. It wasn’t the sharp pain in his stomach or the livid scar on his abdomen. It was watching the people he loved struggle to stay afloat in an ocean of helplessness. By comparison, the whole cancer thing was a walk in the fucking park. Justin was pretty steady, and eventually so was Michael, but Lindsay fought, not only her fear for him, but fear for herself, her fear of what losing him would do to her. When she first took Michael’s place as caretaker, she seemed fine, but it soon became clear that she was acting on autopilot. A week passed uneventfully, but then one day she asked him why he was always flushing the toilet twice after he used it. He should’ve known better than to tell her – even Justin had winced around tears when he’d found out – but coddling people wasn’t in his nature. The reason he flushed the toilet multiple times was that he was trying to protect them from chemotherapeutic agents. _The stuff hangs around in my system for days after each treatment,_ he told her. _I don’t want to expose you and Justin to radioactive shit – literally and figuratively. I don’t want you guys to start glowing in the dark and keeping me awake at night._ He smiled, and she dutifully smiled back, but the drinking binge she went on after that, although polite and WASPy, was impressive even by Brian’s jaded standards. Of course, it wasn’t whiskey and beer; it was sherry sipped discreetly all day from dawn to dusk. Justin often came home, not to a hot meal, but a hot mess.

But then as suddenly as she’d fallen down the rabbit hole, Lindsay clawed her way back out of it. She even started driving to D.C. on a regular basis to procure Brian the best weed to be found on the east coast. It amused him no end to imagine her shopping around for marijuana in her Talbot sweaters and sensible heels. Sometimes she even got stoned with him and Justin, but instead of getting giggly like they did, she just got quiet. Uncharacteristically quiet. When she stopped joining them, Brian was pretty sure Justin had asked her to. Brian’s occasional silliness was as essential to Justin as Brian’s chemo treatments were essential to him. It was their new sex. Carefree and playful – if only for an hour after which Brian fell into a nausea-free sleep.

For a while, things looked like they were improving, but it didn’t last. When the cancer started to spread, Brian had his lawyer draft a will. No one was home when Carter came by. Brian had made sure of it. Justin was meeting with Paul – an encounter Brian knew from experience would last all afternoon – and Lindsay had (at Brian’s firm request) booked a spa day. The whole thing lasted less than two hours. It was pretty straightforward. Gus got a modest trust fund (Brian didn’t want him to turn into a trust fund brat), and Justin got everything else with direction to pay off Lindsay’s mortgage and cover Jenny Rebecca’s college tuition. Ted would become CEO of Kinney Investments. Brian had no illusions that Justin, even as majority shareholder, would want to continue running the company. He’d make a break as quickly and cleanly as possible. It’d never been his dream – he’d only wanted to help Brian make his come true. At the end of the day, Brian knew that Justin wanted to work as an artist – in whatever form that might take. With what Brian was leaving him, Justin could never sell a painting for the rest of his life and still live like a millionaire.

“Just think,” he said when he told Justin about the will. “You can do some pretty weird shit, like what’s-his-face . . . that guy who makes nude sculptures out of homeless people’s discarded junk. Smoke a couple joints, do some E and think up something really bizarre. You won’t have to bother with some fucking for-profit gallery. You’ll be able to afford to just give it straight to MoMA for a tax refund.”

Justin had been sitting on the edge of their bed. At Brian’s words, he stood up and walked over to the window – the one looking out over Philly’s rooftops – his arms wrapped around himself as though he was standing in a freezing wind. He didn’t say anything. Brian was glad. He knew Justin’s instinct was to argue – hell, he probably wanted to get in a knock-down, drag-out fight. Brian wouldn’t be able to deal with it. He just wouldn’t. His days of knock-down drag-out fighting were through. The only battle he was fighting any longer was the battle against himself – the battle against relief that it was almost over, that soon he'll no longer be a fucking millstone around everyone's necks.

* * * * * * * * *

A will? A fucking _will_? Brian was an asshole. Justin hated his radioactive guts. Selfish fucker! Why had he ever thought that Brian had changed – that he was no longer the same man who’d shoved him off countless cliffs in the name of his “own good”? As though Brian had _ever_ had to do that! Justin knew what was in his own interest. He wasn’t an idiot. He never fucking had been. Brian hadn’t needed to push him into Ethan’s arms – Justin would’ve left him anyway. Brian hadn’t needed to drop off the face of the planet when he went to New York so that Justin stayed there – he would’ve stayed anyway. And Brian sure as fuck didn’t need to die so that Justin could be a millionaire “experimental artist” whatever the fuck that was, because if he wanted to be, Justin would do it anyway. Fuck Brian for thinking it was in his, Justin’s, best interest to die!

There were options. There are _always_ options. People who believe in destiny were cowards too lazy to fight for something better than what they believed they were already bound for – good or not. Destiny was a load of crap. You are what you fight for – you only _deserve_ what you fight for. The only question to ask yourself is, “what do I deserve?” For Justin the answer was clear. He deserved Brian Kinney. And because he deserved Brian Kinney, he was going to fight fucking tooth and nail for Brian Kinney, even if that meant fighting Brian Kinney, himself.

He redoubled his efforts to keep Brian alive, but not in the way anyone might’ve expected. Nope. Quitting his life and playing fucking Florence Nightingale wasn’t going to work. It would only make things worse. Brian would feel like “a burden.” Brian would feel like a millstone around Justin’s neck. Hell, Brian would feel like a helpless child. Bald. Puking. Crying. Weak. Or even worse, he’d feel hopelessly old. Hopelessly broken. Nope. Justin was not going to play nursemaid and neither was Michael or Lindsay. Justin was hiring a fucking home nursing agency. Strangers were going to brush Brian’s teeth and clean his feeding tube and wipe his ass. Meanwhile, the people Brian loved were going to go on with their lives. All of them had shit to do. Lindsay needed to go back to her teaching job in Vermont. Michael needed to go back to Toronto to his thriving mail order business. Gus needed to go back to being an advertising intern in Chicago. And he, Justin, needed to go back to New York.

It wasn’t easy. He couldn’t say the words, “I’m doing this for your own good.” Even though it was true and even though it would satisfy a lingering itch for pay-back, it would give away the game. Brian needed to be left – not because people wanted to get away from him, but because people were in love with their own lives, their own potential. People needed to seem like they were flying away because they liked to fly, not because they were leaving him. The only way to convince Brian not to die was to convince him that he could someday join them. More than anything Brian needed a destination –destination that wasn’t death. A dream that wasn’t a senseless eternity.

* * * * * * * *

Brian was shocked – _shocked_ – when Justin hired a home nursing agency and moved to New York. It happened so fast that he didn’t even have time to process what was going on. All he knew was that one day Michael and Justin were caring for him and the next day a woman named “Anita” was. At first he cried. A lot. But then he got pissed. When Justin came back for a visit, Brian tore out his feeding tube and yelled at him until his voice was hoarse. Justin just stood there defiantly, the twitching muscles in his jaw the only indication that he felt anything – anything at all.

“Look,” he told Brian calmly. “I got offered free space in a studio. I live in a fabulous apartment. There’s a gallery interested in my stuff. You know how much I love New York. I thought you’d be happy for me.”

Brian just stared at him. What could he say? He _was_ happy for Justin. He just wanted . . . he just wanted _so fucking much_ to attend the opening of his first major exhibit.

“When’s it going to be?” he rasped.

“The gallery opening?” Justin asked.

Brian nodded. Talking was hard.

“I don’t know yet. I’ve got to actually paint something first.”

“And New York’s your inspiration?”

“It’s _always_ been my inspiration.”

“Are you . . . where are you living?”

“In Alphabet City.”

Brian chuckled – or at least tried to.

“Your favorite place.”

“My favorite place.

Brian grinned. “You,” he said. “You are fucking amazing. Good job, Sunshine.”

“Good job?”

“Good job for growing the biggest fucking balls that any guy – gay or straight – has ever grown.”

“Even bigger than Mother Theresa’s?”

“Much bigger.”

Brian laughed, but then the ever present nausea made him forget what they were talking about. He must’ve turned green or something because Justin came over, sat on the side of the bed, and took his hand.

“I love you,” he said. “More than anyone or anything in the world.”

Brian wove their fingers together.

“Except for yourself.”

“Except for myself.”

“You needed to go.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a revelation.

“Yeah,” Justin said, his voice frank and matter-of-fact.

Brian nodded. He got it . . . or at least he _thought_ he did.

“For you. Not because you couldn’t deal with me.”

“Yes, for me,” Justin replied, gently squeezing his hand. “Don’t think for a second that I couldn’t ‘deal with you,’ Brian. I just didn’t want to.”

Brian grinned through his tears. “Jesus, I fucking love you,” he said.

It wasn’t something he said often. The three words were like elastic – use them too often and they lose their usefulness.

Justin abruptly turned his head away after raising Brian’s hand to his lips and kissing it. Brian was glad. If Justin was going to cry he didn’t want to see it.

Anita was a bitch, which meant that Brian liked her. She often wasn’t particularly gentle, and she’d glare death at him when he refused to do something she deemed necessary. Justin must’ve interviewed a hundred nurses before finding one sufficiently jaded not to make Brian feel like a prematurely born infant or something. _Just shut up and do it_ were her most frequently spoken words. Those and _You are the biggest asshole I’ve ever met_. When Brian asked her if Justin paid her extra to be pissy, she told him he didn’t have to. Brian just made her that way. Otherwise she was the sweetest woman alive. Brian laughed until she gave him a nasty little pinch on the ass.

Justin came home every weekend brimming with news and excitement. Apparently, the blooming cherry trees in Central Park were more beautiful than he’d ever seen them before, and the street people more entertaining to sketch than they’d been when Justin had last mingled among them. He showed Brian drawing after drawing. The rising sun glinting off the windows of mid-town’s skyscrapers. A cabbie leaning against his cab, smoking a cigarette and admiring the women walking by with their briefcases and expensive suits. People picking asparagus and strawberries in the community garden across from his apartment building. Kids playing basketball in a court contained by a dilapidated chain link fence. Rain-soaked passengers crowded on a subway platform waiting irritably for the next train. Every drawing was sharper, stronger, surer than the last.

“Damn, these are good,” Brian said. “Are you painting at all?”

“Pretty much every evening,” Justin replied.

Brian needed to know. “Do you ever paint me?”

Justin pulled a second folder out of his bag. There were several photographs inside all depicting various stages of a large canvas. Despite the painting’s abstract nature, Brian saw his eyes looking back at him. Defiant. Even angry. Filled with light. He hadn’t looked in a mirror for ages. There’s no way he looked like that anymore, and he didn’t want to see what had become of his face with its permanent expression of defeat.

“You have a good memory,” he said. “It’s a long time since I looked like that.”

“Not as long as you seem to think,” Justin replied.

He lay down beside Brian and placed a hand on his chest.

“Your heart is beating fast,” he said. “Are you okay?”

Brian merely nodded. Yeah, he was okay. Better than okay, actually. Justin’s touch awoke something inside him, something dormant but still there. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs as much as he could and then exhaled slowly. When Justin looked pleased, Brian did it again. And again.

“I don’t want to die,” he whispered. It was the first time he’d said those words in a long time. It was the first time he’d even thought them.

* * * * * * * *

At first, Michael and Lindsay were difficult to manage. Every time they visited Brian, Justin had to coach them sternly not to cry, not to coddle, and, most importantly, not to blink when they saw Brian’s appearance and witnessed the care he required from Anita. They were to be cheerful and full of stories of their fulfilling, happy fucking lives. Anita was to report to him if there were any tears. If there were, they’d be banned from Brian’s bedside for the remainder of his convalescence. To his grateful relief, they complied to his requests. When one of their visits overlapped with one of his, Justin was thankful to the point of tears (that he had to hide) when he heard Lindsay gush about a talented student or Michael bitch about the competition from EBay. Brian ate it up. They competed with Justin as to how much more they could make Brian laugh. Michael even took up miming because it made Brian laugh until there were tears in his eyes. Happy tears. Justin grew to love the two of them almost as much as he loved Brian.

Gus was great, too. Brian gobbled up his tales from the World Of Advertising. He especially loved the watercooler gossip and quickly grew to know the various personalities as though he worked in Gus’s agency himself. Once Gus brought his “serious girlfriend.” Justin was nervous – what would throwing a stranger into the mix be like? But she was wonderful. Gus must’ve prepared her well because she took the whole charade in stride. She was kind but not hovering. Amusing but not insincere. Being a yoga instructor, she brought videos of her classes “For Women Of Ample Size,” which made Brian literally guffaw.

But things were different when Brian was safely asleep with Anita keeping vigil in the expensive armchair Justin had bought for her. There were a lot of tears. Justin often found himself being rocked in Lindsay’s arms or fussed over by Michael. He had to force himself to eat. Food tasted like wet garbage and made him gag. He had to practice laughing. He even had to coach himself to smile convincingly. Brian’s cancer hadn’t stopped spreading. It’d slowed down, but it hadn’t stopped. The doctors told them that his survival rate had dropped to about thirty percent. Every Monday morning, when Justin left for New York, he had to stop at the first truck stop to cry his eyes out. Leaving Brian was like tearing open his chest with his bare hands and ripping his heart out. But he never doubted – even for a second – that he was doing the right thing. Brian wouldn’t be smiling and laughing if Justin was there grimly watching over him, fighting tears every time Brian cried out in pain when Anita had to move him. It would be a disaster – a one-way ticket to the grave.

Life in New York . . . well, it was good and bad. He knew, that if he and Brian were going to stay in it for the long run, that he had to take care of himself, and being in New York helped somewhat. He was still in love with the mad, headlong torrent that was life in the Big City. Every day brought a new discovery, something he hadn’t noticed before even though he’d lived there for years. He was especially aware of the architecture. Working with Brian . . . and, yes, Paul, too . . . had made him more aware of the shape and size and details of buildings, even the ones that seemed boring at first glance. He remembered Brian’s photographs, and flogged his heart, forcing it to believe Brian would return to photography someday. That he’d return to playing racket ball. That he’d return to arguing with slumlords. That’d he return to cruising around in his BMW. That he’d return to sex . . .

. . . because _God_ did Justin miss having sex with Brian! Most nights brought dreams of hard cocks and deep penetration . . . of sweat, and spit and come. Sometimes Brian was in his thirties and sometimes in his forties. It didn’t matter. Justin would come in his sleep like a teenager anyway. But then he’d wake to an empty bed, to empty, aching arms. Christ! He remembered everything they’d done, everything they’d said in the heat of the moment! He thought he would die if he couldn’t have those things again. Why had he ever been sometimes “not in the mood”? How could he have ever sought the touch of another man? Had he been insane? He must’ve been. It was the only explanation. Because there was no desire Brian hadn’t been able to fulfill. No fantasy left unexplored. That mouth, those kisses. Those hands, those caresses. Those long legs. Those strong arms. Those curious fingers always touching, always discovering some new pleasure. God, Justin missed all of those things. Missed them with a burning, constant craving.

* * * * * * * *

If Brian dreamed at all, most of those dreams were nightmares. He’d awake from them sweating and terrified. But sometimes the dreams were good – even occasionally joyful. And occasionally even erotic. In them, he was always hard and usually fucking. Justin was eager – even urgent – ordering Brian to fuck him faster. Harder. Deeper. Brian would comply, his pelvis slamming against Justin’s ass, his pubic hair dark and curly with sweat, the muscles in his abdomen tight and tense. He could never come though. No matter how much he wanted to, no matter how hard he tried. He could never come. But when he woke, he occasionally had an erection despite the catheter – hell, given his love of sounding, maybe partially thanks to the catheter. It felt good. It felt like life. Like hope.

The visits were sometimes exhausting, but he looked forward to them like a child looks forward to Christmas. Once Emmett even came for a week, a gesture Brian knew came from pure love because he knew Emmett was always up to his neck in work. Ted, of course, came too. Brian looked forward to his visits almost as much as Justin’s. The others . . . well, sometimes tears filled their eyes, and his heart would hurt. But Ted was a rock – a boring rock. Because Ted wasn’t actually a boring person, Brian knew it was for his benefit. Ted would sit in Anita’s armchair and ramble on about tedious shit like the weather and Pittsburgh politics, which Brian couldn’t care less about now that he’d moved on to Philly. Once he even started reading from Wikipedia on his tablet. It was about the solar system, and it was delightfully, soothingly boring as hell. Ted was also the only person – besides Justin and Anita – who Brian let touch him. Usually it was in the form of hand-holding, but occasionally Ted would massage his temples or feet. It was always gentle and competent. Ted told him that he’d taken a massage class for Blake’s birthday, but Brian had a sneaking suspicion that it’d been for him.

It became fucking hard as hell to want to die when so many people loved you. People with their own lives, their own passions, their own plans. Their stories slowly transformed from distracting and amusing into a desire to share them, to even play a role in them. Especially Justin's stories. Sunshine was flourishing. Away from sickness and pending death, he was alight with inspiration and creativity. His artwork was better than it’d ever been. Life bloomed from it. Playfulness, happiness . . . hope. Brian could not be more grateful for the strength he knew, deep down, that Justin’s bravery and insouciance required. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be alive without it. He couldn’t say anything though. He wasn’t superstitious like Joan had been, but, when you’re as ill as he was, you can’t help but worry about jinxes. He didn’t want to jinx any possible recovery by talking about it. He just had to pray that Justin could see the renewed resilience in his eyes.

* * * * * * * *

When the doctors told them that it was all but certain that Brian wouldn’t survive the rest of the year, something _almost_ died in Justin’s heart. Suddenly, he doubted everything he’d done. Going to New York had been a terrible mistake – a mistake that Brian would pay for with his life and Justin his soul. What the _fuck_ had he been thinking? Was he fucking insane? Who leaves their dying partner? No one, that’s who! The hope withered. The dreams rotted into sleeplessness. The weekends with Brian were both too short and too long. Too short because Justin knew that every moment by Brian’s side was precious, but too long because it was hell to watch Brian struggling.

“At least he’s fighting,” Lindsay said. “Three months ago, it’d seemed like he’d basically given up.”

She and Justin were sitting in the living room, Justin with a glass of wine and the newly-sober-Lindsay with a glass of seltzer and cranberry juice.

Justin could only nod half-heartedly. He was exhausted almost beyond endurance. But he couldn’t sleep even though Brian was taking one of his morphine-induced naps.

“I . . . ,” he said after a several moments. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

She placed a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. Hard.

“You have to,” she said. “What are the alternatives? That you come home? What will you tell him? ‘Brian, you’re a goner, and I want to spend my last days at your bedside?’ Think what message that will send. You did the right thing, Justin. You’re _still_ doing the right thing. Don’t give up now.”

He swallowed back tears. Brian would wake soon, and there was no way in hell Justin was going to go to him with a snotty nose and puffy eyes.

“He better fucking appreciate all of this,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

“He does,” she replied. “Can’t you see it?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t see anything except the fact that he’s slipping through my fingers.”

And he was. Brian _was_ slipping through his fingers. Meanwhile he paid street artists to make sketches, and slaved and wept over his portrait. His portrait of Brian the way he used to be.


	4. Life Is Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter is a nod to the first story in this two-part series, [Life Goes On](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3811930/chapters/8495269). No ambiguity anymore :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is dedicated to all the cancer-survivors out there and all their friends and families. It is also dedicated to those who've cared for cancer patients and did what needed to be done. Lastly, it is dedicated to my husband, who, as I write this, is helping develop a cancer vaccine much like the one that Brian was given. (I would've given more details, but when I asked him to describe the way the vaccine works, I only understood about half of his answer. *g*)

One week Justin didn’t come home for a visit. He called to say he didn’t feel well. A mini-flu. Nothing serious. He just didn’t want to give it to Brian, but he’d be home as soon as it went away. When he said “I love you” three times before he could hang up, Brian knew something was wrong, and it sure as hell wasn’t the flu. When Lindsay arrived a couple days later, he grilled her as thoroughly as a nearly-end-stage cancer patient can. She put up an impressive front – she’d even brought some old Westerns he hadn’t seen to keep him extra distracted – but she eventually crumbled. She was worried about Justin, she told him. He seemed depressed. Immediately after the words escaped, she literally clamped her hand over her mouth like a little kid who’d been tricked into admitting she’d stolen cookies from the cookie jar.

“Brian,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s nothing. He’s just going through . . . This hasn’t been easy for him. Being away from you, I mean.”

“What do you mean ‘hasn’t be easy for him’?” Brian asked. “I thought he was doing what he wanted to do.”

Lindsay’s cheeks were a shade of liar’s pink. “Of course, he’s doing what he wants to do – he loves New York. It’s been a very productive time for him. You’ve seen all the sketches he’s been doing. They’re great, aren’t they? I’m so impressed. Have you noticed he’s made a move to pastels? He’s got such a subtle eye for color. Did you see that sketch of the fountain in Washington Square? I mean, the scarlet of those tulips! And the way he captured the movement of the water . . .”

“Lindsay,” Brian said, resting his hand on top of hers. “Stop it.”

She quit talking as though his words had cut out her tongue.

“What’s going on?” he asked calmly.

“What do you mean ‘what’s going on?’” she replied. “I told you that Justin has a stomach bug.”

“No, you said he was depressed,” Brian said. “ _He_ was the one that told me he had the flu.”

Just then Gus walked in. He was killing two birds with one stone by visiting both his parents at the same time – something Brian would’ve done when he was Gus’s age and if he’d had parents he’d actually wanted to visit.

“‘Mornin’,” Gus said, scratching his ass and yawning. “What’s for breakfast, mom?”

“What’s for breakfast,” Brian said. “Is the truth.”

Gus arched an eyebrow. “The truth?”

“Yes,” Brian replied. “The truth. What is going on with Justin?”

Gus and Lindsay exchanged A Look.

“Mom,” Gus said. There was frustration in his voice.

“All I said was that Justin’s feeling a little down, that’s all,” she replied defensively.

“Like dad’s just going to leave things there.”

“I’m in the room,” Brian reminded them.

“Just tell him the truth.”

“I . . . Gus, you know I can’t.”

“I am still in the room.”

Gus walked over to Brian’s bed and flopped down in Anita’s chair, stretching his long legs out in front of him.

“Justin’s kinda going through a shitty time, dad,” he said.

Brian’s heart turned to lead and sank into what was left of his stomach.

“How shitty?”

“Pretty shitty.”

“Gus . . .”

“No, mom. I’m going to tell him. You can’t let the cat half out of the bag. Besides, this not-telling-him-stuff is bullshit, and I’m sick of it.”

Brian was pretty sure he didn’t want to know what he was about to learn, but his son was right. You can’t let a cat this big only halfway out of the bag.

“Tell me,” he said. He’d thought the words would come out sounding weary, maybe even defeated, but the opposite was true. He sounded like himself. The self he remembered. The self he thought he no longer was.

“Brian . . .” Lindsay said, taking his hand. “You see . . . well, we don’t want you to worry, but . . . you’re going to think this is more serious than it is . . . just . . .”

“Christ, mom!” Gus interrupted. “Look, dad, Justin’s in the hospital.”

“The hospital.”

“Yeah. He admitted himself a couple days ago.”

Brian thought he was going to be sick. Lindsay squeezed his hand.

“He’s fine, Brian,” she said.

Brian wasn’t sure he could believe her. He turned to Gus.

“It’s true,” Gus said. “He’s okay. He just needed a stable place to be while he gets his meds sorted out. It’s not like it’s some kind of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ thing.”

“His meds.”

“It’s not a huge, big deal dad,” Gus said. “We’re all on meds.” He laughed.

Brian did not think it was funny.

“Between the lot of us, we’re keeping big pharma in business. Let’s see: I’m on Zoloft and Wellbutrin, but only because the Wellbutrin helps lessen Zoloft’s sexual side effects, which, let me tell you, suck big time. My girlfriend’s on Celexa. Mom, what’re you on again? Xanax, definitely. And didn’t you just start taking a mood stabilizer with your Prozac?”

“Gus!”

Gus ignored his mother’s outburst. 

“Probably the only one of us who isn’t drugged to the gills is Ted.”

“The only one of you,” Brian said.

“Yeah. The ‘Happy Conspirators’ we call ourselves.”

“Gus! Stop this second!”

Gus looked at Lindsay and then turned back to Brian.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Brian shook his head.

“Didn’t think so,” Gus said. “I’ve been pissed about this whole charade since the beginning. I mean, I know why Justin wanted us to do it, but it has really fucking sucked having to lie to you, dad. None of us is happy. Every single one of us can’t imagine what living without you would be like. Hell, even mom – I mean, Mel – is scared shitless you’re going to die.”

Suddenly, Gus’s eyes filled with tears.

“Fuck,” he said angrily, wiping them away.

Brian just stared at them.

“So this has all been a ruse,” he said. “Linds, are you really having ‘the best year teaching yet’?”

Lindsay dropped her head and shook it. “After . . . after Justin told us how bad things had gotten, I took the rest of the year off. I just couldn’t . . . I couldn’t . . . I’d sometimes be in front of my class, and the tears would start . . .”

She was still holding Brian’s hand. He squeezed hers. Hard.

“Stop crying,” he snapped. “Both of you. If Justin was here right now, he’d be fucking pissed as hell.”

They blinked at him.

Brian laughed.

“Do you honestly think for one second that I’m going to let him down by letting you guys fall apart in front of me? If he’s put this whole thing together . . . Gus, are you even an advertising intern?”

Gus shook his head. “I’m an actor. Well . . . sort of. I’m living with Justin and working as a waiter between bit parts.”

Brian laughed again. This was getting better and better.

“An actor? Perfect. You’ve been getting a lot of practicing apparently,” he said. “What about Susan? Don’t tell me she’s not actually a yoga instructor.”

“Actually, she is,” Gus replied. “She’s also my beard.”

This time Brian couldn’t stop laughing. They’d been trying to amuse him for months, but this, hands-down, was the funniest shit yet.

Except for the news about Justin. That wasn’t funny at all.

* * * * * * * *

Justin had been in this place before – a place in which everything, no matter how objectively beautiful, looked like day-old puke. And smelt like it too. As the days grew shorter and the nights longer, his world began swallowing him whole like a bottomless bog, sucking him down, filling his nose and mouth with sludge, cutting off his voice. The first thing to go was the painting. He just couldn’t do it any longer. His creativity flickered like a guttering candle, and then, one night, it just went out. The darkness closed in around him. He was . . . he was exhausted. Getting out of bed was no longer a given. Showering was an all-but insurmountable task. Only Gus’s occasional presence in the apartment forced him to keep up appearances. He couldn’t let things get so bad that Gus got worried that his resolve to keep fooling his father was faltering.

The others – Lindsay, Michael and Ted – had all told him that Justin’s plans were working. That Brian was getting better. Even Anita reported that Brian was sleeping sounder and doing his physical therapy exercises with a minimum amount of bitching. Brian, himself, seemed cheerful – he’d even started talking about the future. Not the far-away future, but just a few months ago, he’d stopped assuming he’d live until Justin’s next visit. Now he was talking about maybe going on some type of cruise somewhere, although not Alaska. Brian couldn’t see how the prospect of seeing glaciers and whales could outweigh the certainty of sun and sand in the Caribbean. 

But as Brian seemed to be strengthening, Justin started a long, slow downward slide into depression. He did everything he could to stop it. In addition to going back on meds, he joined a gym. He took private yoga lessons with Gus’s “girlfriend.” He started eating a macrobiotic diet. He was religious about getting at least six hours of sleep a night even if he had to resort to sleeping pills. There was nothing his psychiatrist suggested that he didn’t try. But he was just . . . he was just so very very tired. Keeping up appearances and getting others to keep up theirs was stressful. It required making almost nightly phone calls to pump-up spirits and calm fears.

Meanwhile, not being able to hold Brian’s hand and kiss him good-night was killing him. Yes, figuratively, of course. But he couldn’t be sure that losing Brian – especially if Brian were to die suddenly while he, Justin, was in New York – wouldn’t _literally_ kill him. It was strange . . . he was miles away from Brian, but he’d never felt closer to him. Maybe it was because an hour didn’t go by in which he didn’t think of him. Unfortunately, most of those thoughts were dark. After a visit, Ted could recall the light in Brian’s eyes when Brian found just the right insult with which to mock him. Michael could recall Brian laughing at his ridiculous miming (he’d even bought a red beret and a black and white striped shirt to make the whole experience authentic). Ben could recall Brian’s surprising newfound interest in old Japanese films, and Lindsay could recall his renewed love of Marlon Brando movies. But all Justin could recall was the way Brian sometimes panted with pain, his shirt soaked with sweat. The way Brian sometimes looked at him, his eyes full of momentary fear and weakened resolve.

He tried everything. He even tried tricking, but fucking someone who wasn’t Brian was unsatisfying, and being fucked by someone who wasn’t Brian was unbearable. The only sexual act he could fleetingly enjoy was a blow-job, but the release wasn’t worth the gutted feeling that followed. And they definitely weren’t worth Gus’s angry silences if he happened to bump into some nameless guy the next morning. Then one day he woke up and knew it was time. He needed to go to a hospital. He needed to surrender to helplessness and let nurses get him out of bed in the morning and give him paper cups filled with pills twice a day. He needed soft words and boring group therapy. And he needed to talk about Brian. Strangers listened in various states of consciousness to his tales of both good times and bad. He didn’t care how much they actually heard. He just needed to talk, and when he cried, he needed that to be okay. To even be expected and encouraged. He needed to let go, even if for just a little while. He needed a brief respite – to the extent possible – from sickness, death and fear.

He wasn’t ready to leave the hospital in time for his next visit to Philly. It was the first time he hadn’t seen Brian for longer than a week. A nurse held his hand while he made the phone call, squeezing it gently when Justin choked on tears. _It’s okay_ , she said after he hung-up. _You’re doing the right thing – not just for you, but for him, too. He’s going to be okay, Justin. He’s going to be alright_.

* * * * * * * * *

Justin needed him, so he was going to get better, dammit. Fuck this cancer shit. Brian was _through_ with it. Whatever it took, he was going to beat the fucking thing. He was through with Michael’s stupid miming. He was through with Ben’s boring, silent Japanese films. He was through with Lindsay tip-toeing-through-the-fucking-tulips. He was even through with Ted’s massages. He was through. Done. Over it. Fed-the-fuck-up.

The experimental treatment was in the earliest stage of clinical trials. Two out of his three doctors tried to talk him out of it. It required quitting chemo. _You’re not strong enough_ , doctor X said. _Your immune system is too weak_ doctor Y said. _Go for it_ , doctor Z said. _What’ve you got to lose, Brian? If the treatment doesn’t kill you, the cancer will. You’ve got the balls. I say, if you want to do it, do it._ Brian liked doctor Z. He liked doctor Z a lot. If he could get it up, he might’ve even fucked doctor Z. He made a mental note that, if one day he could, he would. He’d give the obviously-closeted doctor Z the fucking of his God-given, natural-born life.

He didn’t tell anyone about the treatment. He didn’t want to stir their fears or get their hopes up. The only person other than his doctors who knew was Anita. She held his hand during the injections, telling him to man-up when he winced at the six-inch needles. One by one, the tumors were invaded by small pox viruses, and one by one, the fuckers slowly vanished, eaten from within by something even deadlier than they were. It wasn’t like it was easy. Brian’s immune system was, indeed, weak. Some days he could barely speak. Hell, some days he could barely open his eyes. But it was working. His doctors didn’t have to confirm it. He knew it was. He could feel it. Yes, he was walking through fire, but he wasn’t burning. Not even the fever could set him ablaze. He was going to live. He was going to fucking live.

When at first things seemed to get worse, he banned everyone except Justin (and Anita, of course) from his bedside. He would’ve banned Justin, too, to spare him the experience, but Justin thought he was dying. It would be cruel to tell him he wasn’t welcome. Justin needed to be there to provide what comfort he could. Just as Justin had sacrificed what meager happiness he’d had – not to mention his sanity – to help him, Brian was going to do the same. If Justin needed to be with him, then Brian was going to let him. To Brian’s relief, Justin never cried, but he couldn’t smile. He tried but kept failing until Brian told him it was okay. He didn’t need Justin to keep up appearances any longer. They didn’t talk much – the more things left unspoken between them, the better. They were beyond words by that point. They’d entered the realm of marrow-deep understanding. Of fierce, unrelenting denial.

Then one day, for the first time since the cancer had spread, Brian discovered he could breathe without pain. From then on the symptoms, one-by-one, fell like dominoes. The fever. The nausea. The ache that had marred his seep for so long. Slowly, but steadily, the cancer retreated. Slowly, but steadily, Anita (who’d softened slightly as death seemed to approach) got bitchier. Slowly, but steadily, Justin’s smile returned. Slowly, but steadily, Brian’s strength increased. Before long, he could roll over without help. Then he could sit up. When he decided it was time to go to the bathroom on his own, he watched with interest as the catheter was slowly removed from his dick, making it swell if only slightly. After that, with Justin’s help, he stated brushing his teeth, taking a daily shower and even, eventually shaving (albeit with a dreaded electric razor). By the time he was ready to tell the others that he was recovering, he could walk to the kitchen and back to his bedroom without assistance and without having to stop for breath. He was still being fed intravenously and probably would need to be for some time, but he could do it himself. He could even lift a few light weights.

“Soon I’ll be able to kick Ben’s ass at racket ball again,” he told Michael as they sat together on the couch one afternoon watching T.V.

“You were never able to kick Ben’s ass at racket ball,” Michael replied.

“Yeah, well, I will be now,” Brian said. “Tell him to prepare to have his ass whupped. He better get in shape.”

Michael grinned and then leaned over and kissed him – a real kiss. The kind of kiss they used to share.

“Hey,” Brian said when they pulled apart. “I’m a married man now.”

“Didn’t stop you from giving that doctor of yours a hand job,” Michael replied.

“He deserved it,” Brian said.

“And I deserved a kiss,” Michael insisted. “I became a mime for you.”

“You didn’t have to, you know.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why? So you could cheer me up?”

“So, I could cheer _myself_ up. Jesus, Brian. It’s not like the world revolves around you. The sun still exists, you know.”

“I heard,” Brian replied. “Ted insisted on educated me about our wondrous galaxy. I’m virtually an astronomer by now.”

“Good,” Michael replied. “You need a hobby. That dying shit got really boring.”

Brian laughed and kissed him again. How had he ever thought this wouldn’t be worth the struggle? How had he ever forgotten how beautiful life was?

* * * * * * * * *

The first time they made love, Justin bottomed from the top. Brian’s abdominal muscles were still sore, and he’d needed another operation to repair his stomach to the extent possible. Brian had been hinting for a while (often not terribly subtly) that he wanted to have sex, but Justin had held out. When he finally agreed, he made Brian promise that he wouldn’t move. _Just lie there and enjoy it_ Justin said. It wasn’t easy. As he neared climax, Brian tried to thrust upward, something he definitely wasn’t ready to do. Justin had to stop riding him and sit down on his hips to hold him steady. _Stay still_ , he murmured into a kiss. _Trust me to bring you off_. Brian opened his mouth and Justin filled it with his tongue. When he started moving again, Brian groaned, his eyes rolling back slightly with pleasure. Justin felt his heart swell in his chest – blooming through his ribs like a rose bush through a crack in cement. Brian felt good inside him, his cock thick and hard. Justin tightened the muscles in his thighs and rode him slowly with concentrated attention, watching the pink flush spread from Brian’s face to his throat and then to his chest. Brian had once been so pale and seemed so fragile; now he was the opposite. His vitality was back. His virility. When he was about to come, Justin reached back to cup his balls, feeling them tighten. Brian groaned again in pure release, his hands clenching Justin’s waist, filling Justin with pulse after pulse of semen. After Justin jerked himself off to orgasm, he slicked his fingers in the come that’d left a warm trail on Brian’s stomach, covering his scars, and combed them into Brian’s hair – that that beautiful dark brown hair he’d missed so much – as he held Brian’s head still while he kissed him.

The only reason that Brian won the racket ball match against Ben was because Ben let him, but Brian didn’t seemed to mind. He gloated and preened anyway, even to the point of being irritating, but Justin couldn’t care less. It made him feel happy to see Brian happy, and happiness was still not a dependable companion. Even now that Brian was decidedly on the mend, Justin still had nightmares and uncontrollable crying jags. Not only was he still on his meds, he’d actually had to increase them. It bothered him. What was wrong? What more did he need? Brian to win the friggin’ Nobel Prize or something? He did his best to hide his careening emotions, but it wasn’t easy. Every time Brian couldn’t keep his food down, Justin was convinced the cancer had returned. Every time he saw Brian’s scars, he felt unaccountably responsible. He should’ve done something! He should’ve insisted Brian turn down those Baltimore jobs. He should’ve nipped the smoking in the bud. What if they’d contributed to lowering Brian’s immunity? It was his fault . . . . 

. . . . and then there was the memory of leaving Brian to go to New York. They didn’t discuss it. Any time Brian even mentioned something tangentially related to it, Justin closed down. He’d made the wrong choice. He knew he had. Hadn’t Brian only started to recover when he’d returned? He’d prolonged Brian’s suffering. He’d been selfish. Had it _really_ been for Brian’s good? Or had he, Justin, wanted to escape, to relive his youth in the city that never sleeps? He was tormented with doubt, and when he started drinking too much, he wasn’t terribly surprised. He’d been in this place before after the bashing. Back then, tequila had become too close a friend. It was happening again.

* * * * * * * *

Brian knew about the drinking. He even knew about the meds and the midnight crying jags. What the hell? He was better now. His doctors said the chances the cancer wouldn’t return in the near-future were excellent. Justin knew that. So what gave? Brian was at a loss as to what to do. Sex had been taken off the table; Justin was having difficulty getting erections. Without their twice-daily fucking, Brian couldn’t think of anything sufficiently distracting to stave off what was clearly a worsening depression. Silences grew like vines, strangling their ability to talk to each other. Then one day Brian figured it all out. He’d never told Justin about the treatment. He’d never told Justin why he’d recovered. It wasn’t because Justin had given up his charade of happiness and returned to Brian’s bedside. His absence hadn’t worsened things and his presence hadn’t caused things to improve. Justin was regretting his decision. Brian didn’t believe in regrets. He never had. He never would.

“It wasn’t you,” he said one night.

Justin looked baffled. As so often happened, Brian hadn’t bothered with a preamble.

Brian was wearing nothing but his loosely belted robe as he approached the coach, wrested the margarita from Justin’s hand, and set it on the coffee table.

“I don’t sleep well knowing you’re out here getting shit-faced,” Brian said. “If you want to feel guilty about something, feel guilty about that, but don’t feel guilty about New York.”

He sat down beside Justin and wrapped his arm around Justin’s shoulders.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Justin said. His voice sounded dead. “I fucked up. As soon as I came home, you started to get better . . .”

“Thanks to an experimental treatment,” Brian said. “Not thanks to you. Sorry, Sunshine, but you didn’t make me better, science did. Get over yourself.”

Justin turned his head to look at him. Whatever emotion was etched into his expression, Brian couldn’t interpret it, and he really didn’t care. Justin could digest the truth anyway he wanted to. The only thing that was important was that now he knew. There were no longer any secrets between them. No more information withheld for the other’s “own good.”

“Look,” Brian said irritably. Justin was wallowing, and Brian was sick of it. “You did the right thing, okay? Do you think I wanted you changing my bedpan and wiping my ass? Do you think I wanted you giving me sponge baths when I started to stink so much that I was making even myself feel nauseous? Do you think I wanted to see you cry or overhear you on the phone with Lindsay or Ted talking about how if I die, then you will, too? Fuck that. Justin, when I saw you, you seemed happy. Your artwork was beautiful . . .”

“It wasn’t really mine,” Justin blurted. “I bought them off street artists. I was lying to you, Brian. I wasn’t happy. I was doing what I thought I should do – I did it for you. Not me.”

Brian felt his heart swell to the point of bursting. He leaned over and kissed Justin’s mouth. No tongue, just lips – soft and sure.

“And it worked,” he said when he pulled away. “And so did coaching Lindsay and Michael and Ted and Gus. By the way, congratulations with Mikey. He’s never been able to keep a secret from me.”

“Tell me about it,” Justin grumbled. “I had to threaten him that if he wasn’t cheerful when he came for a visit, then he’d be banned. The others were better though. Even Lindsay. They understood. Brian, I hope you know how much they all love you – how hard this all was for them. Putting up a cheerful front was _not_ easy.”

Brian could only nod. He got it. That’s all he needed. He didn’t need – or want – to discuss it further. The only thing Justin had to know for sure was that he’d made the right decision. That Brian knew how brave he’d been. How much of toll being away for five days a week had taken on him.

“I love you,” he said frankly. “You gave me the greatest gift you could give me. My dignity.”

Justin smiled the first real smile Brian had seen him smile for weeks. It wasn’t a sunshiny grin, but it was a start.

“How’d it work?” Justin asked.

“How did what work?” Brian replied.

“The treatment that saved you.”

“Don’t ask me to go into detail because there’s a lot of arcane science involved. Basically, it turns out tumors all weak little fuckers. Their cells are highly susceptible to viruses. Inject them with some deadly virus like small pox, and it kills them. Bye-bye tumors. Bye-bye cancer.”

“Wow,” Justin said. “Sounds pretty counterintuitive. One potentially deadly disease killing another.”

“It was like having gladiators battle in my body,” Brian said. “My immunity was pretty low, so things got bad before they got better. That’s the part you saw.”

“I couldn’t stay in New York any longer,” Justin said.

“That’s okay. I got that.”

“If you’d died . . .”

“I didn’t die,” Brian said. “Case closed. Now let’s move on.”

 

After The Conversation, things got better. Justin stopped drinking – well, he stopped as much as he was ever going to. It was as unlikely Justin would give up margaritas as the possibility that Brian would give up Beam. As for the depression? Justin didn’t like to discuss it. Most days were fine, some days weren’t. Brian hadn’t forgotten his own battle with the noonday demon. Prying yourself out of a depression was about as easy as deciding you weren’t going to die from cancer. The important thing was that Brian understood that. He knew that survival was sometimes a tenuous thing – something that wasn’t a given. Something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. When it became clear that the cancer had retreated, he and Justin renewed their vows. Everyone who should’ve been there the first time was there. After they left, Justin said it for the first time – he said he was glad that he’d gone to New York. That he’d made the right choice.

* * * * * * * *

As much as he’d miss Paul (not), Justin decided not to join Brian when Brian went back to work. No, he hadn’t really been drawing in New York, and yes, he’d only been able to finish painting Brian’s portrait when he returned to Philly, but the bug had bitten him again. After a nearly a decade, he wanted to go back to being an artist. Brian was pleased, if not thrilled. Justin knew he would miss their morning brainstorming sessions and Justin’s ability to placate both slumlords and city hall, but it was something he needed to do. For himself. He was so adamant about his independence that at first he was annoyed when Brian renovated one of his commercial buildings to make Justin a studio, but he quickly got over himself when he saw the sun-washed space.

He wasn’t crazy about Brian going back to work so soon, but he was even less crazy about the cranky unoccupied Brian he returned home to every night. As always, Brian was going to do what Brian was going to do. Fortunately, he took it easy though. He was fifty-two, a cancer-survivor and less willing to be workaholic. Brian had realized there were other things in life than making money and getting his way.

“I hope you realize,” Justin said one evening as they were polishing off a bottle of wine and too much Thai take-out.

“Realize what?” Brian asked.

“That you’re a total cliché.”

Brian arched an eyebrow. Justin was playing dirty.

“You’re a defiantly optimistic cancer survivor.”

Brian glared at him, because, compliment or not, Brian Taylor-Kinney was _not_ going to be a cliché, but then the glare turned into one of those you-think-you’re-so-smart-Justin-Taylor-Kinney expressions.

“And _you_ are a moody, overly-dramatic artist with bohemian pretentions.”

“Ouch!”

“Well, eat what you dish out, Sunshine. By the way, can I pour you some more wine to help flush it down?”

He emptied the bottle into Justin’s glass and raised his own.

“To being a cliché,” he said.

“To being a cliché,” Justin echoed.

They clinked their glasses and then drained them, and then – because he couldn’t resist – Justin added another cliché to the mix.

“Life is good,” he said and ignored Brian’s eye-roll, because it was.

It really was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to K for her (much needed!) help with the ending.
> 
> Please forgive me if I don't reply to your comment right away - I've got all kinds of (fun) stuff on my RL plate at the moment. It all wraps up next week, though, after which I have nothing time-consuming planned. I will be catching up on replies then. In the meantime, PLEASE don't think I'm not reading and enjoying your comments. They mean a lot to me. Thank you :)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to all the readers who requested a sequel to "Life Goes On."


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